This started on October 1, 2000. All new users get an auto-generated UserId (vzexxxxx for old-BA customers and vzwxxxxx [eventually] for old-GTE customers).

Also, this was done more to streamline the registration process, and avoid mucking the databases up any further than they already were. One problem that was occurring (more pronounced as the usernames got taken) was that as more and more people were connected to the registration servers, trying to come up with unique usernames, the servers were getting overloaded with requests.

FAQ by kadar